SF Encyclopedia Home Page
Sunday 9 August 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Balfour, Andrew
(1873-1931) Scottish medical doctor specializing in tropical medicine, and at around the beginning of the twentieth century author of several adventure novels under the influence of H Rider Haggard and Robert Louis Stevenson. Of these, ...
Ditmar Award
The Australian SF Awards, familiarly known as the Ditmars, were first given in 1969 and are presented in various categories for sf, fantasy and horror-related work by Australians. The name comes from the long-time Australian fan and artist "Dick" Jenssen, whose full name is Martin James Ditmar Jenssen and who won the award in fan artist categories in 2002 and 2010. Voting resembles the system used for the Hugos but is associated with membership of the annual Australian ...
Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth
Film (2007; vt The Man from Earth). Falling Sky Entertainment. Directed by Richard Schenkman. Written by Jerome Bixby. Cast includes John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, William Katt, Annika Peterson, Richard Riehle, David Lee Smith, Alexis Thorpe and Tony Todd. 87 minutes. Colour. / History professor John Oldman, who has unexpectedly announced he is leaving his position, hosts a farewell party for several colleagues and a student. In the course ...
Bergsøe, Vilhelm
(1835-1911) Danish author whose Proto SF novella "Erindringen fra en Reise med Flyvefisken 'Prometheus'" ["Recollections of a Journey with the Flying Fish 'Prometheus'"] (9-23 January 1870 Illustreret Tidende; trans Dwight R Decker as Flying Fish "Prometheus" 2015), which is set a century after its publication, during a time of recovery after the great Anglo-American war. The protagonist flies the eponymous ...
Mastin, John
(1865-1932) UK author, clergyman and science popularizer, author of three Scientific Romances. The Stolen Planet (1906) features the picaresque adventures of two Earthmen who, after Earth has been shaken by a vast Disaster, undertake a Fantastic Voyage through the solar system and beyond, as narrated by Jervis Meredith, co-developer of an "aerostat" capable of ...
Clute, John
(1940- ) Canadian critic, editor and author, in the UK from 1969; married to Judith Clute from 1964, partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996. He began to publish work of genre interest with an sf-tinged poem "Carcajou Lament" in Triquarterly for Winter 1960 [ie Autumn 1959]; he began consistently publishing sf reviews in his "New Fiction" column for the Toronto Star ...